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alex018
Reviews
Ren zai jiong tu: Tai jiong (2012)
(Not) Lost in translation
Sadly, this is another lame movie that passes for popular in China. It's disappointing to see that Wang Baoqing has a knack for playing a painfully annoying character; Wang is pretty good at being an ordinary guy in indie movies, i.e. the amazing Blind Shaft. Here, Wang is cartoonishly destructive and annoying, and armed with a cactus. He's supposed to be a hapless idiot, but really he seems to want to be an injurious nincompoop.
The boss is another character that seems outlandish to me, but maybe less so to Chinese audiences. I find it hard to fathom someone so stiff and smarmy. Compared to these wackos, Xu is too straight. Perhaps it's that I'm American, but I can't see past this. With good Chinese independent films, there is little lost in translation; it's a smack of reality. With this movie, I can't seem to enjoy Chinese-style wacky comedy.
Elysium (2013)
Letdown!
Yes, it could have been great; setting, characters, special effects... But it turns into Hollywood Hogwash as soon as the action starts. Then, it gets messier and messier as it accelerates towards the final human/mechanical fistfight. I was loving the movie as it introduced its setting and followed a day in Max's life, but that only lasts 15mins :(
Kruger was great, so much could have been done with the character, but with this mess, his violence is just ugly, not to mention him getting blown apart.
Fey was well cast, Jodie Foster was OK... the Spider character was ridiculous though, haha.